Wednesday, 28 May 2014

The UK's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is keen to reach people who really don't know very much about it. If you'd not heard of 'NIHR' before or don't know what it is without googling them then this might be for you. (Also, scroll to the end for info about a job with them).

NIHR Faculty: supporting the individuals carrying out and participating in research

NIHR Research: commissioning and funding research

NIHR Infrastructure: providing the facilities for a thriving research environment

NIHR Systems: creating unified, streamlined and simple systems for managing research and its outputs."

An email sent round to members of the CHAIN group (Contact, Help, Advice and Information Network - for anyone working in the fields of health and social care) alerted me to this consultation that might be of interest - here's the email.

Over the next six months, the National Institute for Health Research http://www.nihr.ac.uk (NIHR) is carrying out a strategic review of public involvement in health, social care and public health research to ‘examine future options for building an active collaboration with the public and making best use of their skills, knowledge and experience in the work of the NIHR.’ It is expected to define a vision and set clear goals for the next ten years.

Patients and the public, researchers and clinicians, the NIHR and other organisations, are being asked to contribute their views with a particular focus on the innovations and new approaches that will help the NIHR break new ground plus the barriers and challenges to be overcome in this important area. The review is keen to hear from people outside the NIHR – including those who don’t know much or anything about the NIHR. Please contribute your views to this review (Deadline: 26 June) and / or cascade this information more widely to others who might be interested.

Monday, 26 May 2014

Every now and again there are tiny discussions on Twitter about how dreadful manual RTs are, as if they are 'stealing' someone's content and repackaging it as one's own. I've no truck with this notion myself because a manual RT includes the name of the person who sent it (if it's a 'naked' tweet then yes, that's stealing) and the person is notified in their mentions / notifications.

A manual RT is one where you see RT, MT or via in front of the original senders's name (RT = retweet, MT = modified tweet, where it's amended to fit the space). Usually a comment is added (these are sometimes known as comment RTs) - and if it isn't I'd be more in agreement with the complainers (but there are *exceptions, see below).

On Echofon for iPhone you get the option to 'retweet' (that's the automatic one) or 'retweet with comment' whereas on desktop Twitter.com the button lets you do automatic tweets only. To manually RT you need to copy and paste the tweet into a 'compose new tweet' edit-space and prune to fit / add commentary.

For a long time this was the only way to retweet as Twitter was a bit slow in bringing in the automatic RT function.

Pros of manual RTs

The most useful aspect of a manual RT is that it's a quick way of trapping that text in your timeline - if the original is deleted you still have your copy. You can find the content easily later (it's in your own archive) and don't have to remember the name of the person who sent it - there are lots of better ways of permanently trapping a tweet though.

If the tweet has a URL in it you may be able to get an idea of how often it's been clicked (I'm honestly not sure about this though and don't know what click number is being given in Twitter Analytics) - no, the new Twitter Analytics appears to tell you only about your tweet not how often the link's been clicked overall (the previous version did show this).

You can add a comment, hopefully pithy and useful

If the tweet was automatically RTed into your timeline you can add back the name of the person who brought it to you. I always feel that with automatic RTs this aspect is missed out which is a shame because that is information about 'the network'. If someone regularly sends fascinating stuff into my timeline and I automatically RT it I think it's denying anyone seeing my RT from knowing that there's someone else they might like to follow as well. Sometimes people send a separate tweet 'that tweet via @XYZ) which is clunky but if it can be done in the manual RT so much the better).

You can pin it to your new timeline, if you like that sort of thing. You can't pin other people's tweets (fair enough they're not yours to pin) but if you manually RT them they become 'as from your timeline' and you can pin to your heart's content.

Cons

It seems to irritate some people, although that might be a Pro depending on who's being annoyed ;)

It makes it harder to see how 'well' a particular tweet did since each tweet carries with it its number of automatic RTs and favourites.

If someone has switched off RTs for your account (say you auto-RT a lot of stuff) then this bypasses that and may irritate them, though this may also be a pro as well depending on the circumstances.

Neither pros nor cons
Since Twitter notifies you anyway if someone else retweets your retweet, or a tweet you were mentioned in it makes not a whit of difference to your knowledge of how that tweet is being shared. It does make a difference to the RT-count on your own tweet (if you were the one who sent it) so if you're doing metrics on a tweet campaign you may need to count other stuff too, if you must :)

//Yes you can send links in DMs
While I'm at it, I still see a lot of people wondering about this. The trick is to send plain text, not hyperlinked URLs. Twitter automatically recognises anything URL-like (http://www.google.co.uk) as something to turn into a clickable blue link (http://www.google.co.uk) and it rejects the majority of these in DM messages, purportedly to reduce click-spam phishing attacks). All you need to do is tweak the URL to stop Twitter from recognising it as an URL.

Strategies such as adding non-URL characters, eg ^^ somewhere in the middle work fine (the recipient needs to know how to 'mend' the deliberately broken URL though) or you could put something at the front of the http:// eg Xhttp:// (Twitter still recognises text strings as addresses even with the htt... protocol bit removed). See tip 2 in Some Twitter tips, not exhaustive but probably useful.

Sunday, 25 May 2014

This post refers to using Twitter on the desktop Twitter.com version - things may well be quite different on Twitter for Smartphone apps and other apps (eg Echofon, which I use).

Yesterday I spotted, while pruning spam followers, that Twitter's added some extra options to the block function, and that I also have the additional option of muting people.

Mute

If you mute someone then their tweets don't show up in your timeline but they do show up in your mentions. This means that people probably won't know you've muted them, because their messages to you still get through. You can also find their other messages by visiting their profile page or searching for messages they've sent.

I've used my test account to mute myself. In the screenshot above you'd click on the snowflake / gear wheel icon and choose 'Mute this user' from the options. Once done you'll see a red icon of a muted speaker.

Block
I block a lot of spam followers or people who've followed me for what I think are irrelevant reasons (because I once mentioned a word in a tweet that they're interested in). You used to be able to block 'without blame' but now Twitter requires you to fill in one of four options before you can block them, I don't really like this but that's what's changed.

This means that blocking someone is a little bit harsher than it was previously. It still means that none of their tweets will show up in your timeline or mentions (though you can still view their profile as they can view your tweets through your profile).

The big difference is that by blocking them you are also reporting them to Twitter, which may not be what you want.

So there's no way of removing someone from your follower list without potentially getting them in trouble, which seems a shame.

Remember: blocking someone on Twitter never stops them from reading your tweets, it only stops tweets showing up in timelines / mentions.

Answers to common search questions
I'll put them here when I have a look at my Google Analytics logs - don't fret I can't tell who searched for what, meanwhile here's what Google suggests in its autofill.

1. Can I tell if someone's muted me?1. How do you know if someone's muted you on Twitter?
No. To the best of my knowledge this information is not available to users (though presumably Twitter must know, obviously, so that it can avoid delivering the tweets). See also answer to 2.

2. If I mute someone on Twitter will they know?
No. See answer to 1. Additionally I am not aware of any notification sent when someone mutes someone else, I don't think Twitter wants to make this information available.

If you visit their profile page you'll see the red 'silenced speaker' icon (see first picture) so you'll be able to find out if you've muted someone (assuming you forgot). I suppose the only way they'd ever know is if they played around on your computer while you were logged in to Twitter, and visited their own profile (!), or you sent them a screenshot ;-)

Saturday, 24 May 2014

Here are all the films I've found so far, last updated 29 June 2014.
Ones in bold are showing more than once.

Where are they showing? See the listing in context at 2014 London's open air cinema screenings. Once on the page use Ctrl+F or cmd+F to find them, it's a long list! (Press enter to jump to the next instance of the film being searched for).

Moulin Rouge
Muppets Most Wanted
Napoleon Dynamite
Natural Born Killers Never Ending Story
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Old School
Only Lovers Left Alive
Philomena
Pinocchio
Pitch Perfect
Pretty Woman Pulp Fiction Raiders of the Lost Ark
Ratcatcher
Reservoir Dogs
Rigoletto (opera)
Rocky
Rocky Horror Picture ShowRomeo + Juliet
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
Rosemary's BabyRoyal Tenenbaums, The
Run Lola Run
RUSH (2013)
Rushmore
Sense and Sensibility
Sexy Beast
Shaun of the Dead
Silent Running
Silver Linings Playbook
Singin' in the Rain
Six Shooter
Skyfall
Slumdog Millionaire
Snatch(Spinal Tap - also listed as This is Spinal Tap)
Spirited Away
Spring BreakersStand By Me
Stories We TellSuperbad
Surname Viet Given Name NamTen Things I Hate About You
The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The 400 Blows
The Beach
The Best Exotic Marigold HotelThe Big Lebowski
The Birds
The Blues Brothers The Breakfast Club
The Croods
The Dark KnightThe Devil Wears Prada
The Faculty
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly The Goonies The Graduate The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Great Beauty
The Great Gatsby
The Hangover
The Inbetweeners movie
The Intouchables The Lego MovieThe Matrix
The Motorcycle Diaries The Notebook The Princess Bride The Royal Tenenbaums
The Selfish Giant
The Silence of the Lambs
The Talented Mr Ripley
The Truman Show
The Usual Suspects The Wolf of Wall Street Thelma & Louise This is Spinal Tap Top Gun
Toy Story
Two Days One Night
True Romance
Under the Skin
Walkabout
Wall-E
Wayne's World
Weird Science
What We Do in the Shadows
When Harry Met Sally
When we were Kings Withnail & I

Below is the list of films that showed in 2013 (but I've not picked out the ones that were shown more than once.

(500) Days of Summer About Time Adam Buxton's Best of Bug: The Evolution of Music Videos Amelie Amour An American Werewolf in London Anchorman Annie Hall Argo Attack the Block Back to the Future Badlands Batman Begins Beasts of the Southern Wild Bedknobs & Broomsticks Big Blazing Saddles Blue Valentine Blues Brothers Bonnie and Clyde Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast Club Breathless Bridesmaids Brief Encounter Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid CarrieCasablanca Central Station Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Cinema Paradiso City of God Cocktail Coming to America Crazy Stupid Love Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Dazed and Confused Devil Wears Prada Dirty Dancing Django Unchanged Donnie Darko Dr Strangelove Drive E.T. The Extra Terrestrial Easy Rider Edward Scissorhands Elephant Man Empire Records Evil Dead Ferris Bueller's Day Off Fight Club Flashdance Four Weddings and a Funeral Frankenstein National Theatre Frankenweenie Ghostbusters Grease Gremlins : The New Batch Guys and Dolls Hitchcock I Give It A Year In the Mood for Love Jaws Jerry Maguire Juno Kes Kill Bill Vol Labyrinth Les Miserables Let the Right One In Life is Beautiful Life of Pi Little Miss Sunshine Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels London: The Modern Babylon Mad Max Mean GirlsMeet The Parents Memento Midnight in Paris Moon Moonrise Kingdom Moulin Rouge! Napoleon DynamiteOld School One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Pan's Labyrinth Predator Pretty Woman Prince Avalanche Priscilla Queen of the Desert Psycho Pulp Fiction Queen live at Wembley Raiders of the Lost Ark Raising Arizona Reservoir Dogs Roadhouse Rocky Horror Picture Show Roman Holiday Romeo & Juliet Rust and Bone School of Rock Se7en Seven Psychopaths Shakespeare in Love Shallow Grave Shame Sightseers Silver Linings Playbook Skyfall Slumdog Millionaire Some Like It Hot Stand By Me Star Trek II Wrath of Khan Team America Ted Terminator The 40 Year Old Virgin The Artist The Big Lebowski The Birds The Commitments The Good The Bad and The Ugly The Graduate The Intouchables The Italian Job The Kid The Long Good Friday The Look of Love The Lost Boys The Loved Ones The Motorcycle Diaries The Never Ending Story The Notebook The Red Shoes The Silence of The Lambs The Truman Show The Untouchables (Brian de Palma)The Usual Suspects The Way Way Back The Wedding Singer The Wizard of Oz The Wrestler Thelma and Louise There's Something About Mary Things I Hate About You This is Spinal Tap Throne of Blood Top Gun Trainspotting Trance Troll Hunter True Romance Tyrannosaur Unbreakable Usual Suspects V for Vendetta Wayne's World Weird Science West Side Story What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? When Harry Met Sally Where The Wild Things Are Withnail & I Zero Dark Thirty Zoolander

You are welcome to copy and paste all or part of this text of this post into your own site / blog but please credit this post. Possibly it's actually better to embed the Storified version (updated 14 July 2014) of the text below - which will automatically update itself in your site*, as I amend the Storify. You don't need my permission to do either, get sharing the screenings - the more people hear about open air screenings the more people might go to them, and so more open air screenings might be put on in London in future - which would be a wonderful thing, especially the free ones :)

The photo is also Creative Commons but please credit it to the right person because it's not mine.

*because each time the page containing the embed code is loaded it will fetch the latest version from Storify.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/krancien/3044291838/

Here's what I'm aware of so far, feel free to point me to others in the comments. Just London though, but if a similar list exists for other areas I'm keen to link to it. At the end there are links for tickets (note some are free eg Vauxhall Village and More London), times, info etc.

Still to add / watch out forDalston Roof Park
in Dalston has open air films showing every Tuesday, however they don't
list their films in advance so I can't list them here, but you can keep
an eye on them on Twitter and Facebook.

Summary: changing your Twitter name to increase your anonymity doesn't work as people can always find you thanks to (a) the way Twitter threads conversations and (b) because you'll presumably still chat to the same people after the name change.

You'd need to create a new account from scratch (and uncheck the Security/Privacy - Discoverability option that lets people find you from your email address). It's Twitter's threading functionality (where clicking on a tweet brings up the whole conversation) that makes it so easy to uncover you by the conversations other people are having / have had with you.

You can change your Twitter name at any time and for any reason. Sometimes people do so because they want to use their real name, or to match their blog name, or just fancy a change.

Some choose to change their name to increase their anonymity. From what I can tell it probably doesn't work - and I've no idea if this is something that's widely known, but I think it might be useful to be aware of.

I only know of a handful of people who've changed their name so I don't have a wide pool of experience to draw on, but here's what I've found.

Recently someone in one of my Twitter circles "disappeared", by changing their name, locking their account and blocking some of their followers (including me). I've no idea why they did this and didn't know what their new name was.

To confirm that they'd 'gone' I tried searching for an older tweet that I'd sent to their original name by searching for

from:jobrodie @TheirOldName

and, sure enough, when I found an example tweet it was clear that their old name was no longer hyperlinked (physically it was plain black text instead of the usual clickable blue that active account names have).

However when I clicked on my tweet it opened up a thread with two tweets in it. The one they'd sent me* and my reply. Their reply now told me what their new name was and that their account was now protected, *so I couldn't see what they'd said. While I can't see any of their tweets I can see what anyone has said in reply to them by searching for tweets sent to their new name

@TheirNewName

Remember that protected tweets are not all that private because people tweeting to you can give you away.

I then tried searching for tweets I'd sent to another friend who'd changed their name (but whom I'm still following, under their new name). Exactly the same thing occurred - I found my old tweet which contained the text that had @TheirOldName in it. That name was no longer hyperlinked meaning the account doesn't exist, but clicking on the tweet brought up the thread and showed me their new name (which of course I already knew anyway).

Twitter's threading functionality (I still think of it as relatively new but it's been around for a few years) means that tweets sent to an account can give away as much information as tweets sent from an account.

I used the search facility to find the handful of people I know of
who've changed their names by looking for tweets I'd sent them, but it's
just as easy to find people by searching from tweets sent by others, if
you know who they've been talking to.

Deleting all your old tweets could help but I doubt it. To be absolutely certain you'd probably have to get everyone else to delete their old tweets to your previously-named account, which is probably a bit unlikely (particularly if you're changing your name to avoid an annoying person)!

Tickets go on sale 10am Friday 16 May 2014, not 2013 as they have on the website.

Here's what's on offer. I've tweaked the link for the Tenth Anniversary Screening vote so that it doesn't inherit my info.

Text is pinched wholesale from their email to mailing list subscribers, hope they aren't cross with me for reposting it, but if they are I'll remove it.

UK Premiere: Two Days, One Night (cert TBC)Thursday 7 August 2014
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard stars in this riveting French drama about a woman fighting to keep her job. Tough yet tender, the UK premiere of the new film from acclaimed filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne kicks off Film4Summer Screen in powerful style.

Rosemary's Baby (18)Friday 8 August 2014
A masterclass in suspense, director Roman Polanski's sophisticated horror hit stars Mia Farrow as a mother-to-be who starts to sense the presence of an evil influence on her life. Polanski's subtle approach to shocks makes for a film that will keep you gripped for the entire evening.

A Fistful of Dollars + Mad Max 2 (18)Saturday 9 August 2014
Two maverick heroes in a pair of films that redefined action cinema. Director Sergio Leone introduces us to Clint Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' in a stylised ‘60s Western, while Mel Gibson’s 'road warrior' Max returns to the screen in an adventure full of heart-stopping thrills.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (U)Sunday 10 August 2014
Need a Sunday night pick-me-up? Director Howard Hawks’ quick-witted screwball-musical is one of the most exuberant cinematic entertainments of all-time, its dazzling colours and sparkling comedy enhanced by the formidable screen presence of stars Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Sense and Sensibility (U)Monday 11 August 2014
Writer Emma Thompson's take on Jane Austen's novel is a perfect literary adaptation, a romantic comedy of manners that won the BAFTA for Best Film. With a cast including Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and Thompson herself, this tale of two sisters will transform a summer's night.

Annie Hall (15)Tuesday 12 August 2014
Hilarious and provocative, Woody Allen's 1977 classic has lost none if its romantic and comic spark. Diane Keaton is a delight in the title role, teaming up with Allen to play a pair of neurotic New Yorkers drawn to each other from their first meeting.

UK Premiere: 20,000 Days on Earth (cert TBC)Wednesday 13 August 2014
A unique and cinematic documentary film that constructs an imaginary day-in-the-life of writer & singer Nick Cave, following him from Brighton bedroom to Sydney Opera House as it explores the mysteries of the creative process, the nature of collaboration and, ultimately, what makes Nick tick.

I was at the Sundance Festival London a couple of weekends ago and saw a few snippets of this, as part of the biggest panel interview event I've ever attended (8 panellists plus interviewer). It looked really good.

The Great Beauty (15)Thursday 14 August 2014
The winner of this year’s Oscar and BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film takes you on a dazzling trip through contemporary Rome, where the parties may be dizzying but the comedown can be hard. An extravagant cinematic experience that more than lives up to its title.

Hairspray + Spring Breakers (18)Friday 15 August 2014
Teenage rebellion comes in all shapes and styles in this double-bill featuring the subversive talents of directors John Water and Harmony Korine. The original 1988 version of Hairspray shimmies into Somerset House to shake up the squares, while former Disney starlets-turned-Spring Breakers find trouble in paradise with a deranged James Franco.

Ghostbusters + Big Trouble in Little China (15)Saturday 16 August 2014
Two supernatural spectaculars team up for one wild night of comedy and action. First, Bill Murray and the ghostbusting gang rid New York of paranormal pests, followed by Kurt Russell as a tough-talking truck driver sucked into a San Francisco underworld of monsters and magic.

The Royal Tenenbaums (15)Sunday 17 August 2014
Three child prodigies struggle to grow up in director Wes Anderson’s endearingly eccentric and emotional comedy, where each big laugh is accompanied by a hard tug on the heartstrings. Featuring a family-tree of famous faces including Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow and Owen Wilson.

The 400 Blows (PG)Monday 18 August 2014
One of the greatest films ever made about being young, director Francois Truffaut’s debut tags along with a teenage tearaway as he comes of age on the atmospheric streets of late 1950s Paris. Beautiful black-and-white photography and the vivid New Wave style make this an essential big-screen experience.

UK Premiere: What We Do in the Shadows (cert TBC)Wednesday 20 August 2014
What happens when four ancient vampires become housemates in contemporary New Zealand? This hilarious mock-documentary, featuring Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords, details all the comic complexity that arises from such difficult living (or not living) conditions. A closing night full of laughs and surprises is guaranteed!